"How much is this gonna cost?" This is, quite naturally, a very common question prospective clients ask.
The trouble is that most web designers find this a difficult question to answer. It's not that they don't want to tell you. It's just hard to give an answer because it depends so much on what your requirements are, along with all the variables they introduce. They're not trying to be difficult or hide anything. It's no different to that old "how long's a piece of string" question.
Here's the thing - a website is a custom project. To price it properly a good web designer needs answers to lots of questions about your business and goals. The questions are focused in that way because a great business website should usually focus more on the business's customers than it does for the business per se. For example, specific questions like:
- Does the site need to let the client's customers buy products or services from them (i.e. E-commerce)?
- Will it be a membership site so customers can log in to it?
- What content is available or required?
And that's just a few areas, but all these things add complexity, time and effort - and so could affect the price.
